Confined states of a positronium in a spherical quantum dot

Confined states of a positronium (Ps) in the spherical quantum dot (QD) are theoretically investigated in three size-quantization (SQ) regimes: strong, weak and intermediate. In the strong SQ regime, analytical expressions for the wave functions (WFs) and energy of the electron-positron pair are obtained. In the weak SQ regime, the Ps energy and binding energy are analytically calculated. To calculate the Ps energy in the intermediate SQ regime, variational and numerical methods are used. It is shown that, in the corresponding limits, the results obtained by variational method agree with those obtained in the strong and weak SQ regimes. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.